Witness: 'I seen a guy shooting my landlord'

Crime scene tape remains outside a house on the 800 block of S. 31st st. after a Sunday morning stabbing and house fire, Monday, April 8, 2019, in Lafayette. One person was found dead at the scene, another was transported to a Lafayette hospital for treatment for a stab wound.(Photo: Nikos Frazier | Journal & Courier)

LAFAYETTE — Tom Day walked from his lifelong home of Dayton Beach, Florida, to Indiana in 2017 because he wanted to see snow.

Day rented a room inside the house and has only good things to say about his landlord.

“Ron was a good guy. He helped people out,” the 39-year-old native Floridian said.

Day remained hospitalized Wednesday, recovering from 29 stab wounds he received during a fight with Whiles' killer.

“I’m getting a lot better. I should be out in a few days,” Day said during a telephone interview with the Journal & Courier. “I’m alive now, that’s all that matters.”

An intruder brought death and destruction to Whiles and those in his world, including Day.

“I was sleeping. I heard like ... fire crackers going off,” Day said of the predawn assault on Whiles. “I got up to see what’s going on. I seen a guy shooting my landlord.”

Day charged the shooter, jumped on the man's back and put him in a choke hold, Day said.

“I told Ron to get up and call 911,” Day said, recalling that Whiles was alive at that point in the struggle. “He was on the ground, and he said he couldn’t move.”

While Day had the intruder in a choke hold, the intruder repeatedly stabbed him, Day said.

Since Whiles was unable to get help, Day let go of the intruder and ran to his room to call 911. He heard more gun shots, followed by a "whooshing" sound of an accelerant being lit, Day said.

"I seen the fire coming at me, and I had a fire extinguisher,” Day said, but the fire extinguisher didn't do much good.

The 911 dispatcher told him to get out of the house, so he climbed out of his bedroom window and laid on the ground outside waiting for help, which he knew was on the way because he could hear the sirens.

Paramedics rushed Day to an Indianapolis hospital, where he spent the first few days in critical care, according to police.

Day's foot got tangled up with something in the window, which required a surgery to repair the damage, Day said.

He had another surgery on his stomach and only recently was cleared to eat solid foods, Day said.

Detectives spent last week developing leads on who Whiles and Day's attacker might be. Those clues led them to Andy Alcorns and an address in Dayton, Ohio.

Lafayette police describe Alcorns as a person of interest. Police in Dayton, Ohio, called Alcorns a suspect in a Lafayette homicide.

Day apparently was little help in this part of the investigation.

“I couldn’t even see the guy. I couldn’t tell what he looked like,” Day said, explaining it was dark and the intruder's clothing make it difficult to make out details.

On the morning of April 11, Lafayette police asked their counterparts in Dayton to check an apartment with an Arnold Place address northwest of the downtown district to see if Alcorns was there.

He was.

That started a nine-hour standoff that ended when Alcorns put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.